George Bennett (12 February 1829 – 16 August 1886), sometimes known as Farmer Bennett, was an English professional

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er, who played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

from 1853 to 1873. He was mainly associated with Kent County Cricket Club, and made more than 150 appearances in first-class matches.George Bennett
CricInfo. Retrieved 26 March 2017.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 53–57.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Statis ...

. Retrieved 6 August 2022.)

Life and career

Bennett was born in Shorne Ridgeway near Gravesend, Kent, where he was employed as a bricklayerMonumental Inscriptions of St Peter & St Paul Church, Shorne - recorded by D. E. Williams 2013
Kent Archaeological Society. Retrieved 26 March 2017. and for 25 years at

Cobham Hall Cobham Hall is an English country house in the county of Kent, England. The grade I listed building is one of the largest and most important houses in Kent, re-built as an Elizabethan prodigy house by William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham (1527� ...

John Bligh, 6th Earl of Darnley Lieutenant colonel John Stuart Bligh, 6th Earl of Darnley DL (16 April 1827 – 14 December 1896), styled Lord Clifton from 1831 to 1835, lord of the Manor of Cobham, Kent, was a British peer. Early life He was the eldest son of Edward Bligh, ...

as a cricket coach for his sons, including Edward and

Ivo Ivo is a masculine given name, in use in various European languages. The name used in western European languages originates as a Normannic name recorded since the High Middle Ages, and the French name Yves is a variant of it. The unrelated So ...

both of whom went on to play for Kent. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm slow roundarm bowler who played in 126 matches for Kent. He played for several of the representative travelling teams including the

United All-England Eleven The United All-England Eleven (UEE) was an English cricket team formed in 1852 by players breaking away from William Clarke's All-England Eleven (AEE). Key UEE players included John Wisden and Jemmy Dean, who became joint secretaries of the team ...

(1860–1862);

All-England Eleven In English cricket since the first half of the 18th century, various ''ad hoc'' teams have been formed for short-term purposes which have been called England (or sometimes "All-England"; i.e., in the sense of "the rest of England") to play against, ...

(1864) and the

United South of England Eleven The United South of England Eleven (USEE) was an itinerant cricket team founded in November 1864 by Edgar Willsher, as secretary, and John Lillywhite, as treasurer. The USEE had no home venue as its prime purpose, like all similarly named teams of ...

(1872). He represented the Players in 1865 and 1866. He was described by

Lord Harris Colonel George Robert Canning Harris, 4th Baron Harris, (3 February 1851 – 24 March 1932), generally known as Lord Harris, was a British colonial administrator and Governor of Bombay. He was also an English amateur cricketer, mainly active ...

in 1907 in the ''History of Kent County Cricket'' as "one of the best all rounders Kent has produced". Bennett took part in the first English tour of Australia as a member of HH Stephenson's XI in Australia in 1861–62. The team travelled to Australia on the ''

SS Great Britain SS ''Great Britain'' is a museum ship and former passenger steamship that was advanced for her time. She was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great We ...

''. During the voyage, while the team was practising on deck, one passenger received a broken nose and cut cheek when he was struck in the face by a belaying pin which Bennett was using as an improvised cricket bat. In the only first-class match on the tour, playing for "The World" against a "Surrey XI" at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1862, Bennett took seven wickets in each innings and made 72 in the first innings. He was the first player to be ever given out handled the ball. In a match for Kent against Sussex at the

County Cricket Ground, Hove The County Cricket Ground, known for sponsorship reasons as The 1st Central County Ground, is a cricket venue in Hove, East Sussex, England. The County Ground is the home of Sussex County Cricket Club, where most Sussex home matches since 1872 ...

, in August 1872, he removed a ball that had become lodged in his clothing, and was given out before he had scored a run.

Notes

References

Sources

Arthur Haygarth Arthur Haygarth (4 August 1825 – 1 May 1903) was a noted amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians. He played first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club and Sussex between 1844 and 1861, as well as num ...

, ''Scores & Biographies'', several volumes, Lillywhite, 1862–72 * ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', several volumes to 1874

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, George 1829 births 1886 deaths People from Shorne English cricketers English cricketers of 1826 to 1863 Kent cricketers North of the Thames v South of the Thames cricketers Players cricketers Players of the South cricketers North v South cricketers All-England Eleven cricketers United South of England Eleven cricketers